Prototype: Inhuman
by Lord Purple Heart
Summary: Even after what's happened to New York, GENTEK's still lingering in the shadows. They continue to produce their genetic weaponry with their blind faith in the power of science, overstepping the bounds of morals and ideals. But they made a mistake when they fused the genes of Pariah and Dana Mercer to create a new Hope Child. He is Codename: Hercules.
1. Prologue: I am

Prototype: Inhuman

Prologue: I am...

I never knew my father.

I grew up in what they called a "containment ward" or some sort of "isolation unit" for the majority of my early childhood. I didn't really mind it. I liked the quiet. The quiet soothed my soul.

I read books in the spare time I had after those men in white coats were done asking me questions and testing me with strange needles.

I never understood why those needles were necessary back then. Besides, when they poke holes in my arm, the holes just disappear.

It was always filled up with some strange red liquid. I never bothered to ask just what exactly that stuff was. It looked...beautiful, in a sense. It was a stark and powerful contrast to the constant whiteness that was the color my room was.

White bedsheets, white ceiling, white tiles.

Everything was white.

I never quite understood that back then, either.

...

I never met my mother.

They said to me that after I was born, they had separated me from my genetic mother right away. I was never to make contact with her again because the two of us might do something dangerous. She might teach me something dangerous.

That's what the men in white coats told me.

I always believed them. I didn't think that they'd have any reason to keep the truth from me back then.

As I read many more novels as time went on, I began to understand a bit more of human nature. And so, when the next scientist came in, I decided to talk to her.

When she pulled out yet another needle to take my blood, I spoke to her.

I asked her why they wanted my blood.

I knew what blood was now, thanks to the books that I had been given.

She just smiled at me and said that it was necessary.

…

It was when I was thirteen.

I had begun to grow tired of the blood tests and the questions that those people would constantly ask me every day. And then one day, something different happened.

A man walked into my room, and he was nothing like I'd ever seen before.

He was wearing dark green clothes that looked clearly like he had ventured outdoors for a long time. His hair was a dark brown, a color I scarcely saw in this place. His skin was far darker than mine, which was pale and whitened.

His eyes were a startlingly ice blue, and I felt strange when I saw that color. I had never seen any of the people here with lab coats that also had blue eyes.

I remember standing up and walking up to him, a smile on my face.

I was about to ask him a question.

I couldn't ask that question.

I felt a piercing sensation shoot through my chest, and I stumbled backwards. Shock was something I wasn't used to, and so I sat there trying to process what had just happened.

A sound had cut through the air when I had felt my chest in pain, and now my ears were ringing. I looked down at my body, and I saw my blood staining my white clothes.

I heard the sound again. And then again.

I felt my body spasm over and over, and the painful sensation pricked at my arms and my legs. More and more of my blood began to come out, and I felt a strange kind of feeling well up in my chest.

Was it fury? Anger? The simple loss of patience and temper?

I didn't know.

I looked at the strange object that the man was holding. It was a lot like the illustrations I had seen of weapons that soldiers used to kill people. There was a hole in the side facing me, and that hole was letting out smoke. I could smell a scent I'd never smelled before.

My curiosity began to burn bright, and I stood up. I walked over to the man, who had begun to step back for reasons I could not tell, and I smiled to him. I grasped the barrel of his gun and ripped it from his grasp. Before he could react any more, I took it with me to the far side of the room. Placing it on the floor, I began scanning my library of books. Seeing an encyclopedia, I smiled and pulled it out.

After reading a bit, I nodded and put the book back.

Yes, it was a gun. To be precise, it was an assault rifle. An M16. A standard-issue assault rifle given to law enforcers and military crew throughout America.

And he had just shot me with it. Three times.

The smell that I could detect was the smell of gunpowder, as well as the increasingly heavy scent of fresh blood.

My face suddenly bent into an expression I hadn't made yet, and I picked the gun back up. I stared at the metallic surface of the weapon, and the strange emotion from earlier began bubbling back up. I felt my eyebrows knit, and then my grip on the stock and the barrel grew tighter.

With a simple and weak movement, I felt the metal cave under my arms as the gun broke in half. Shards of steel flew into the air, and I discarded the now broken and useless firearm onto the floor.

I walked back to the man, whose expression had become one I was a little bit familiar with.

I remember reading something about that kind of expression.

I think it was called...what was it?

Fear?

I paid the thought no heed and turned the man around. I pushed him lightly out of the room, but the movement sent him sprawling onto the floor. He quickly scrambled back to his feet and exited the room hastily.

I shook my head and looked back to the wall. It was now stained and splattered with the color of my blood, and I thought it might be...a refreshing change.

Ignoring the mess, I walked back to my library and took out the novel I had been reading earlier. I sat back onto my bed and opened the page on the bookmark I had left there after one person in a lab coat had offered it to me. I had taken it with gratitude, even if his face was trembling slightly.

…

I never got to meet my father.

I never got to meet my mother.

In fact, they told me that I didn't really have a real mother or father. I was just a baby born and raised in a test tube. I was only a product of the combined genes of two different people.

But I remember the names of those two people as if they were my own father and mother.

They called him Pariah.

They called her Dana Mercer.

And sometimes...I hear the whispers or the hushed chatter outside my room as they get ready to test me again.

I heard a bunch of different names.

But one stood out among the rest.

I was...

I am Codename: Hercules.


	2. Experimentation

Experimentation I

It was like any other day in my life. It was...an ordinary day.

My 'ordinary' was waking up to my white ceiling and getting out of my white bedsheets and folding them up, fixing my white bed. Then, it's off to my bookshelf and seeing just what I could select to read for the morning. Then, I would hear the sound of someone knocking on my door. I would turn to the door, watch it slide into the wall and disappear, and see a person in a lab coat holding a tray of food. The person, whether it was a man or a woman, would smile at me politely and place the food on my desk and leave.

I just ate it. I would never question what it was, the taste, or why they were giving it to me.

I just ate it.

After that, I would just go to my bed and read my novels. Once that was done, I would just sleep. Then I would wake up once again and try to keep myself in shape, as well as to kill time through physical means.

There was some exercise equipment in the room, per my request to keep my body in shape. After all, I never got any sunlight or proper exercise in this room, so machines and simulators could do the job better than nothing. That was my line of reasoning.

They had told me that it was not necessary, those people in lab coats. That toning my body was unnecessary, and the only good it would do was for the sake of killing time.

I had asked for it anyway. Reading alone would not sate my curiosity anymore. I loved books, but I was also human. At least, that was my presumption.

Since I looked perfectly human, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with my body at all.

Sometimes, I questioned why I was here.

After all, the books I loved always detailed stories of people living in the 'outside' world.

I wonder...

What's it like outside?

This thought was still fresh in my mind when I heard the door open once again.

"Good afternoon. Today, things are going to be a little different. Come with me."

A woman stepped into the room wearing yet another white lab coat. She was clearly an adult in her thirties, complete with a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and a heavy-set scowl. She was kind enough to smile at me, however, but went back to her frown the instant we exited the room.

As we walked, I took note of the environment. It was my first time, after all.

I was being led through a long, plain white hallway, and I felt a little sick and tired of the same color decorating my vision over and over. There were no doors on the sides, none I could see, and there were no furnishings like how there were in my books.

At the end of the hall was another doorway, this one being much larger than the entrance to my room. As it slid open, the lady gestured for me to follow her. I did so obediently and quietly, not quite sure what to expect.

As I stepped through the doorway, the woman held up a hand. The gesture to stop walking. I immediately ceased moving and stood still, to which she nodded and walked away. She walked to the left, where another door slid open and she disappeared through it. The doors closed behind her, leaving me alone in the room.

I observed my surroundings a bit more closely.

This room was far larger than anything I was used to, fitting the kind of space requirement that I would imagine a ballroom to be. The space was empty and barren, and the only remarkable feature was a massive square that took up the center of the room. It was so wide and large, I was nearly stepping on it, and I was close to the entrance.

Within the square, many smaller squares were lined up in rows and columns. It was like having a massive floor plan showing the floor tiles inside.

A grid, so to speak.

Suddenly, I could hear the sound of a voice boom across the entire room. It was very loud, making me wince and reach for my ears by reflex. I stopped my hands by force of will, instead choosing to listen to the words being spoken.

"Mic test, mic test."

_That's what people using microphones say to make sure the device is functioning properly, right?_

I've only read about it. I've never actually seen it or heard it being used.

I had to admit, experiencing something I've only read about is interestingly refreshing.

"Okay. Good day to you, young man. If I'm not mistaken, you don't have a proper name. Am I right?" The voice that boomed out from every direction was that of a friendly-sounding old man. His tone didn't sound hostile, instead seemingly intimate and warm.

"Umm...can you hear me?" I responded with my own voice, wondering if that's what I was supposed to be doing. My own confusion leaked out through my voice, making it come out weaker and more timid than usual.

"Ah, very good. Yes, everything you say out loud will be broadcasted to me."

_That's pretty cool. _

"So...to answer my previous question, I will ask you it again. You have not been given a name, am I correct?"

The question lingered in my mind, and I placed my hand on my chin by force of habit as I tried to recall. No one has ever bothered to tell me what my name was, or what people chose to call me outside of my room. As far as I could tell, I had none.

The idea made me a little sad, but I chose to remain honest. I said this to him, and he grunted in an acknowledging manner through the mic.

"I see."

Suddenly, I saw something move in the room. I turned my eyes to the center of the grid, and I witnessed the floor tiles rising from the floor like stalagmites.

Various different levels and platforms were in full view by the time that the mechanism had finished.

"This is an obstacle course. I want you to get from one side to the other. Simple as that." He instructed me.

I narrowed my eyebrows, not sure why he wanted me to do that. But since I was left with no other option but to disobey him stubbornly and sit on the floor or attempt to exit the room, I took a step towards the jagged and craggy-looking floor.

The instant I stepped on the first tile, the floor immediately reacted. Suddenly, the platforms began shifting and moving, changing the level of their height constantly. I took a cautious few steps forward, and the ground began changing a little more violently.

Suddenly, I felt something extremely bad.

I felt a cold and pitted feeling, like a sword blade or a gunshot, run through my body. My senses suddenly shot up, and I crouched down on one knee by reflex and braced my arms against the ground.

Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late.

The second I did, two massive square-like platform shot out from either side of me and slammed together directly on the spot where my head used to be. I shuddered to think what might have remained of my body if I had not taken action, and I rolled under it and stood back up.

"Excellent reflexes, for someone cooped up in a room all day. All you do is read and occasionally tone your body, yet you can already do things to this extent..."

I ignored the elderly voice from the mic and began sprinting forward. My back ran cold again, and my legs braced themselves and sprang me into a really high jump.

An instant later, white and sharp spikes shot out from the floor where I was standing. They were large, the base being wider than I am, and shiny like marble.

I sucked in my breath and landed onto one of the higher platforms, rolling to cushion my impact when I did. I stood back up and took a cautious look around me, surveying the field. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that nothing was coming for me as of now.

Suddenly, the floor below me rumbled and shook, and I stumbled and fought to stay balanced. Two massive rectangles of white steel shot out from the ground, positioned directly to my right and left. Without warning, they suddenly closed in on me faster than I wanted to think about, and my arms thrust out by reflex. I felt the shock of the impact down to my feet when the rectangular objects struck my palms, and I grit my teeth as I began pushing back against the steel.

"Oh, so your physical strength has gone to this extent, has it? Interesting..."

I felt my being scream with protest as my arms continued to hold out against the pressing sensation. It was intensifying by the second, attempting to squash my body in between them like a sandwich.

_I won't be able to push them back in time! I'm going to die!_

"Let me make something clear to you by asking you a question." The elderly voice suddenly rang clearly in my ears, and it lulled my senses and dulled my strength. I could feel my arms begin to buckle under the weight of the pressure as my attention was trying to switch between my survival and what the old man had to say.

"I'm trying to stay alive, here!" I complained, and I realized that it was the first time in my life that I've managed to retort to someone. A strange sense of happiness filled my being, and I pushed a little harder.

"What do you think you are?"

_What do I think I am? What kind of question is that?_

"What is that question supposed to mean?" I responded, pushing outwards even harder.

"Do you think that you're normal?"

The question, one that I didn't expect to hear, and especially in this situation, made me cease paying attention to the walls around me. The crushing sensation was now but a dull ache in my mind, which now focused on the explosion of thoughts in my mind.

_Am I normal? _

I certainly had no idea what normal was supposed to mean. I had no idea how to answer the question.

_What **is**_ _normal? _

I certainly had no idea how to answer that question, either.

But from the books I've read, normal certainly didn't mean what I was doing right now. Which was holding off two massive walls of white steel that were threatening to crush my very being into a flat rag.

This wasn't normal.

Being able to do this...certainly made me abnormal.

_I'm...not normal?_

The thought distracted me so much that I began to feel the pressure on my arms intensifying. Before I knew it, my extended arms had been forced into a position closer to my body then I wanted them to be.

I shook my head to drive the thoughts away and exerted even more force into my arms, and the steel pillars began to move away from me.

I threw my arms out in a single, strong burst of energy. The pillars suddenly disconnected from the steel on the floor and flew into the walls, and I heard the sound of metal rending against metal as the objects were shattered into tiny pieces.

The feat had already tired me out, and the rest of the thinking had drained my mental energy. But the obstacle course showed no mercy to me, and I felt the floor shift under my feet rapidly.

Within the blink of an eye, my body was thrown backwards and enveloped into a steel bar cage. I felt chains suddenly latch onto my wrists, and my limbs were violently wrenched backwards. The white steel bars suddenly detached from their vertical position and aimed themselves at me. I heard a faint whirring sound in the back of my head as the poles began to spin. They spiraled faster and faster, turning at a speed that became unidentifiable.

As I looked on, they slowly began to move closer and closer to my body.

I focused my strength into a single arm and forced it forwards, and the steel snapped under the force of the motion. I quickly reached for the other clasp and smashed it under my grip. I turned my attention back to the impending threat, only to find it directly in front of my face.

It had begun to move faster while I was trying to free myself.

I grit my teeth as I grabbed the pole in front of me with my hands. Immediately, I felt a wrenching sensation in my arms as they struggled to keep their paltry grip on the spinning steel. I felt the pain sear through my forearms, and I felt like yelling out a scream.

With a violent yell, I made my arms fly downwards while holding onto the steel bars.

Immediately, the steel snapped as I made the motion.

Once I had broken the trap, the rest of the cage reassembled itself into pillars and disappeared into the ground. The world around me, suddenly died down and became a single flat plain once again. I frowned, or at least...I think that's what I did.

It was my first time to do something like that.

"Hmm...yes, splendid. Incredible." The elderly voice once again spoke, and the voice circulated around the room. It was full of pleasant surprise and revelation.

I wasn't happy to hear it.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of metal sliding against the metal. It was a sound I was familiar with. It was the sound that the sliding door would make whenever it opened.

On the far side of the room, opposite of me, I saw a lone form walk inside the room.

The form was clearly not human.

It was humanoid in its build, but the entirety of its body was made of metal. It was taller than I was, most likely eight feet in height. Its metallic muscle bulged and radiated with a menacing aura, despite the lack of biological life.

Its eyes, merely made of lens and glowing with artificial light, stared at me.

Deadpan. Emotionless.

"Your task is to fight this robot. Okay, begin." The voice nonchalantly said, and the prompting was not wasted on the mechanical threat.

With no warning whatsoever, the mech broke into a run towards my position. Every step it took made the ground thunder and rumble, and I reflexively took a step back.

_This thing won't stop until one of us is done for. _

Making that thought perfectly clear in my mind, I drew strength from it and tried to hold my ground as it approached me.

One...two...

The steps it took brought the machine in front of me much faster than I liked to admit, and I watched it pivot its chest backwards. It began to clench its mechanical fingers into a fist and cock its elbow.

As the punch sailed through the air towards me, I rolled under it and ended up behind the robot. The punch struck the ground where I had been, creating a loud sound that made my eardrums scream in protest.

It spun around and threw another punch. I wasn't ready for it, and the attack caught me in the side. I felt abominable amounts of pain and heat race up my flank, and I felt myself lose a lot of strength as I flew through the air and slid across the floor. My back struck the wall, and I stopped.

I felt the air in my body hitch and catch in my chest, yet I felt my lungs burning for the oxygen. I watched my mouth cough and hack, and the floor was suddenly stained with splotches of bright red.

The color, stark and vivid, brought one fact to mind:

I was going to die.

I felt something guttural begin to stir within my body, and my vision began to turn red. I felt heat, but not unpleasant heat, begin to sear up within my body. It raced through my body, and I felt myself fill up with energy. My vision, blurry from the pain and the impact, was suddenly clear and sharp.

The robot closed in on me, and I watched its movements more attentively than before.

Its powerful legs dashed in a pattern similar to the descriptions of boxers that I've read about. It hopped on its feet in a very lively manner for a split second before dashing in zig-zag mannerisms towards me, its hands up and defending its face.

It tried to deliver a strong punch with its right arm, and the metal object raced towards me at near incomprehensible speed and precision.

The heat in my body suddenly intensified to an unbearable point for an instant, and then the heat all traveled and focused into my arms and legs.

Without meaning to, I performed an evasive leap to the left, sliding to a halt. I performed another involuntary movement, closing in on its side.

For some reason, it seemed...slower. Reading its movements suddenly felt far easier. Watching its arms and legs...I could suddenly tell where it was going to go and the speed of the strike.

I pushed myself off the ground and tried to jump at the robot.

Hopefully, I was going to reach its shoulder and climb onto it from there. Then, I would try go for its head.

I didn't expect my leg-power to launch me directly over the robot's head.

Changing my plan midway, I spun once and performed a kick straight to the robot's head.

I was expecting it to have no effect, or nearly none. At best, it would damage the inner wiring a little.

Instead, the whole head flew off of the robot's shoulders and crumpled into a single mass and wires against the wall. The body, now separated from its head, reeled back and began malfunctioning. I saw sparks and lights emanating from the empty hole where the head once used to be. The limbs began moving independently each of other in a very crazy manner, splaying to many different sides and directions within the span of seconds.

It struck itself in the steel torso with its own fist, and the metal titan fell over and exploded. Debris of wires and steel flew every which way, and I ducked to protect myself.

Silence.

"Well done. The simulation ends here."

I heard the door slide open once again, and I turned to it. Several people in lab coats rushed through it and went over to the robot. As they began examining the torn-up mess of metal, I noticed another old man in a lab coat walk up to me.

He was very large and round, and his hair parted along the middle. Short white hair was present on the sides of his head.

"You did outstandingly well for a first try. I'll tell you something interesting as a reward." He said, a smile on his wrinkled face. I walked slightly closer to him, as I felt curious.

"You don't have a name to call yourself, am I correct?"

He's right. I didn't.

The realization only confirmed what I had been thinking earlier.

I am _not_ normal.

The man smiled again, this time with an eerie feel to it.

"Until you find a name suitable to call yourself...how about you use the one that I made for you?"

"And that would be?"

"For now...your codename is Hercules."


	3. Experiment Breach

Experiment Breach

They kept subjecting me to similar tests for days upon days, up to the point where I began to stop caring about how many tests I've done and how many days it's been.

Most of the tests were far safer than what I had experienced on the first day, being tests to measure my physical strength and my reflexes. Lifting weights was too easy and boring a task, yet they had me perform that task over and over again. Every now and then, the weights would get too easy to lift that it became mundane, and the scientists would place more weights onto the bar whenever I commented on it. It reached the ridiculous point where the bar broke in half over the weights while I'd felt nothing but a feeling of lingering boredom and disappointment.

When the weights training was over, they'd usher me into another room of plain white. It'd become a natural part of my life, but books I've read have depicted scenes of stunning beauty and mesmerizing colors beyond the drabness that a single shade of color was able to provide.

Though if I voiced my complaint, I was sure I wouldn't be getting any acknowledgement.

In that room, I'd be forced to use a pen and write down whatever the men and women in lab coats would tell me. Usually, they'd ask me to write down book reports about the literature around my room. That was interesting at first, but it soon began to get dreary and uninteresting when they asked me the same thing over and over and the only thing would change would be what I write about.

Sometimes, it was different. Sometimes, they'd ask me to draw something after they describe it. I never knew if I did good enough a job, but I at least tried my best to replicate some of the images I could remember from my books. When they seemed satisfactory, I'd hand it in. And they would just look at it, and I see a brief change in expression, most notably in their eyes, before they put it onto the table face down and ask me to move back to my room.

That was my daily life for how long. It had been dreadfully boring and repetitive, and I'd hoped that something would happen soon. Something that would break the routine that surrounded and trapped me in this place.

But when I got it, I didn't like it any more than this.

The day was an especially quiet day.

My room was the same as it always was. Several white wooden shelves filled with books of all kinds decorated the otherwise plain white room. The floor was also completely white and made of ceramic, no grooves or nooks carved into it like an interior designer might choose to amuse himself with. White bed-sheets and white pillows rested on a white mattress, propped up by the only other colored wood within the room, which was a light brown bed-frame.

A little ways off from the bed, there rested a single desk and chair. The chair was similar to the office chairs described in some of my books, with its hardened white plastic and its soft white cushion as well as its comforting white backrest attached to a slightly-darker-shade-of-white plastic spine. At the bottom, three legs on darkened white wheels held it up.

The desk was also white, with the desktop being pure white plastic. There was a small indent in one of the sides of the table, though I don't know what its use is. The four legs were a shiny, silvery metallic color with black shock absorbers on the bottom of each leg.

I sat on the bed facing the chair, reading my latest book when it happened.

Suddenly, I heard an unfamiliar sound echo in my ears.

It was a loud and extremely obnoxious sound, one that blared and threatened to deafen me entirely. It sounded like nothing I've ever heard before, only that it was extremely loud and heart-stopping in its sheer volume. I could feel the room vibrate slightly just from the sound.

And then I felt the entire world shake violently, almost sending me off-kilter. I dropped the book in my hands and grasped one of the bedposts to steady myself. The bedpost in my hand also shook with intensity much stronger than anything I've previously felt.

As I got to my feet, still holding onto the bedpost for balance, my senses got rocked a second time. I almost fell onto the floor, and I threw out my foot to regain my balance. As I steadied myself, I felt another immense shock send waves through the ground. I corrected my posture and tried to remain standing as I released the bedpost.

Without warning, yet another powerful shock wave sent my sense of balance out the window that didn't exist in my room. I threw out my hands and tried to steady myself again, and time passed as I held my breath.

No more shocks.

But over the powerful blaring noise playing annoyingly in the background, I could hear something new.

It was the sound of footsteps. A lot of footsteps. Like the march of a thousand men rumbling outside my door.

I began to hear the incomprehensible sound of men barking in their gruff, loud voices at each other. I couldn't understand a single thing they were saying, but I could sense the aggressiveness and exasperation in their voices. And it wasn't pleasant to listen to.

As the sound of the marching continued, I decided to just sit back down and let the storm pass. It wasn't like they were going to go into my room, anyway. There was no reason to-

Suddenly, I heard the rare sound of my door sliding open.

I turned to the door, and I saw a bunch of men standing in the doorway. They were dressed in clothes that were a mixture of colors I haven't seen outside of my books. Green, brown, black and other such colors all blended together in a single hard-to-describe color.

_...Camouflage, right? _

With no words, they filed inside my room with their rifles in tow. They moved around until there was at least one in each spot. By the door, in the corners and one standing directly next to the table. It was almost comical for me, and I chuckled quietly to myself.

I didn't expect all the men to react extremely violently to it, especially considering they decided to grab onto their rifles and stare at me in a panic. I heard small sounds emit from the rifles as they lowered it and breathed a sigh of relief.

"God. Damn. He shouldn't scare us like that. What's the report on this guy?" One of the soldiers, a lean man with pale blue eyes, slightly pale skin and a genuine look of anxiety, said to the others.

"He hasn't caused any trouble recently, but there was an incident recorded where a soldier entered the room without permission. He broke the guy's gun without trying." Another man, this one with extremely dark skin and oak brown eyes, replied as he looked at a small device in his hands.

He was swiping with his fingers and tapping the screen, with no buttons to speak of, and I felt a feeling of curiosity well up within me.

"E-excuse me?" I said, and all of the men reacted violently again. They looked at me with expressions of fear. Staring at me with dumbstruck expressions, they looked like they had no idea how to react to me. They said nothing, only looked at me with slightly quivering eyes.

"May I look at that?" I asked the dark man specifically, pointing at the small device in his hand with my finger. He looked at the other men, who nodded subtly to him. He walked over to me with shaky steps and held the phone out to me. His fingers were holding it as if he were handing a biscuit to a rabid animal.

I took it from his hand delicately in case anything else would aggravate him, and I took a closer look.

It was a rectangular object with rounded edges around six inches in length and two and half in width. The screen took up the length of the phone, no buttons on the device save for a single one located at the bottom of the screen.

_I haven't seen anything like this yet. How interesting. _

I rotated the device a bit.

The sides of the gadget were lined with a chrome-like metal lining that was smooth and cool to the touch, and I felt a sense of wonder overwhelm me. I felt something on one of the sides, and I turned it around.

There were a few buttons on the sides. Two next to each other, and a single one on another side.

"What is this?" I asked the dark-skinned man curiously.

"...er, that's a phone..." He said to me matter-of-factly, and I felt a sense of amazement sweep through my body.

_This is a phone?! _

Suddenly, while I was still staring at the device in my hands much to the bewilderment of the other men in the room, the most violent tremor yet erupted through the ground and sent everyone off balance. The men stumbled and fell against the walls, trying to regain their balance.

The man in the corner, a fairly tan man with blonde hair and dark green eyes, pulled out a black radio and began yelling into it.

"Hey! Echo team! What the hell is going on out there?! Over!" He said, his voice almost completely drowned out over the obnoxious blaring noise in the background.

_Oh, now I remember. That's an "alarm", right? _

A muffled response impeded by static was emitted by the small black phone-like device.

"We can't hold it back! We need reinforcements! I repeat, Echo team is requesting reinforce-"

Suddenly, the voice was cut off and the only thing left was the sound of static.

"ECHO TEAM! ECHO TEAM, RESPONSE!" The man yelled into the radio, but he got nothing but static.

"Damn it! Keith! Guard him! We'll back them up!" He said, putting the radio back into his pockets and loading his rifle. With a cry and a yell, the soldiers save for the dark-skinned one filed out of the room with their guns at the ready.

And then there was silence. But even in the silence, I could hear the sound of rumbling from somewhere not too far away. Probably within the same building, I guess.

The dark-skinned guy just looked at me, a tired look in his eyes, as he walked over to the chair and sat down onto it facing the door. He took his rifle in both hands and propped it onto his thigh facing the door as well. With no words and an aura of exhaustion and nervousness, he waited.

And I waited in silence. When he wouldn't respond to me trying to prompt him, I decided to just admire the phone in my hand. I pressed the lone button on the top, and I almost dropped the phone when a bright picture suddenly shone on the screen. It brought the dark glass to shining, vibrant life. I felt a feeling of amazement place a stupid grin on my face.

_Swipe...to unlock?_

I looked at the phone closely, but I didn't understand the command. I touched the screen and moved my finger in the direction of the arrow next to the command prompt, and suddenly the effects of the screen changed. From a serene picture of a sunset on the sea, it became a different picture.

But before I could get to look at it properly, the world suddenly exploded around me.

As if the entire world had been struck with a hand, my vision went all over the place as an indescribably powerful shock wave erupted and swept through the room. I flew in the air, landing on the floor rear first. The dark-skinned man also fell onto his butt, and the sound of a firearm going off echoed off the walls. The bullet struck the door, leaving a blackened hole in the steel.

The next thing I knew, the door was torn through like it was paper.

A massive pink thing flashed through my field of vision without warning, and the man near me screamed in pain. When I turned around, I was greeted with a gruesome sight.

The dark-skinned man called Keith had a massive pink tendril of what looked like flesh clutching at his chest. White spikes of what looked like bone protruded through his back, with his heart and his lungs speared onto it and blood coating it copiously. He had an expression of pure agony on his face, and he tried to shoot the strange organic tentacle that had him in a clutch of death.

The only it did was pull him through the door, screaming, and out of sight.

I stood up, my heart pounding and blood roaring in my ears, as I tried to process what I had just seen.

_Okay, he's probably dead. Which is fine. Perfectly fine. _

As that thought ran through my mind, I looked at the phone left on my bed. I picked it up, noticed it had turned back off and unlocked it again.

I was greeted with the new picture.

It was a place I was not familiar with. It looked like a garden, with its bright green bushes and grass livening up the picture. The sky above was a deep light blue that mesmerized me and made me feel like getting sucked into it.

But what caught my attention was what was in the middle of the picture.

The guy named Keith was crouching in the middle of the photo with a wide smile on his face. He face looked a bit tight, as if he were straining himself. On his shoulders, three small children sat on his shoulders with wide smiles and open mouthed laughter on their faces. Two of the children were female, one that was dark-skinned and one that was fair-skinned. The dark-skinned one had curly hair braided into a ponytail that hung down her left shoulder and over her chest, and she had dark brown eyes.

The other girl with fair skin had light chestnut hair that was straight, flowing down to her nape. Her bangs overlapped the lines of her face, with her leftmost bangs longer than her right. A white hairband stood out from her sea of hair on the top of her head.

The boy was tan with light almond shaped eyes that were nearly black in color, and his brown-blonde hair was pointed slightly upwards and swept to the side. And the woman standing next to them was white skinned, with light blonde hair dyed light green at the tips and blue eyes that looked a lot like the sky above them.

Looking at the picture, I didn't even realize that my fingers were beginning to tighten.

I didn't know this guy. I didn't know his family. Hell, I didn't even have any family or friends the way this guy probably had. I've never been outside these rooms of white, but this guy has probably seen things I've only read about. He's done things I've never done. Said things I'd never had the opportunity to.

_He's had the opportunity to live. _

_I've only been alive. _

It seemed really asinine, that someone who had been living his full life the way he wanted to had been killed unceremoniously just like that.

_What...is this feeling? _

I stood up, and I took the phone in my hand as I looked at the broken and blood-streaked door.

Before I could tell my legs to move, I'd already started walking towards the gap in the wall. As I did, I thought back to the thing I saw that killed Keith.

The tendril looked to be made of flesh, though it was grossly disproportionate and clearly unnatural. Ropes of nothing but muscle had been ripping throughout the entire limb, and the length of the tentacle was layered with spines and spikes. It was also covered in blood.

I really didn't want to find out what that tentacle belonged to.

* * *

As I walked out into the hallway, I felt like vomiting and walking back inside.

The hallway was littered with bodies and blood, severed limbs and head scattered here and there with portions of tattered flesh still attached to them. Pools of blood were like puddles of rainwater in the storm, and I didn't want to defile them. Especially considering I was barefoot.

But I swallowed down what bile wanted to come out and began walking down the dank, darkened and bloody hallway.

As I walked past the bodies and heads, I forced myself to remain calm.

The beating of my heart was strong, so strong that it was like the tremors from earlier. It pounded like a bullet against my chest, so much that it hurt. As I walked, I tried not to stumble on my shaking legs. As I walked further and further into the hallway, the walls were gradually getting redder and redder with the stains of blood.

It made me wonder how the liquid was sticking to the metal.

The smell was beginning to make my head hurt, the strong scent of torn flesh and heavy blood. The air reeked with an aura of malice, one that made me want to run away and hide. I didn't know where I would go, but...

_Anywhere's better than here._

As I rounded a bend, I felt the urge to vomit become even stronger.

Piles of pulverized flesh lay in lines and lines along the hallway, some with eyeballs and entrails still partially intact. There were scattered rifles here and there, all splattered with blood. I bent down and picked up one that still seemed intact.

_What...happened here?  
_

There was a word for this kind of thing in a book I'd read quite some time ago.

I think the word was: disgusting.

Walking past the piles of flesh carefully, I reached the end of the hallway. The door was the one from how long ago. The door to that extremely long training room that I had been once tried and nearly killed in.

It filled me with a strange feeling of...what was it?

Nostalgia?

Before I could even begin figuring out how to open it, I heard a new sound.

It was a very soft and near-inaudible hiss that sounded like something being dragged across the floor, but more airy and ominous. It sounded like there was some intent behind it. Something...that sounded...

The only term I could think of is _**evil**_.

It wanted to kill me. It wanted to kill something. Someone. Anyone.

Anything.

The door was ripped apart with a sickening sound, and I tried to walk backwards. But when I took a step back, I felt a chill shoot down my spine. A warning, more than anything else, to keep me alive.

I really didn't want to look backwards. But when I did, I felt small comfort in seeing what I was about to get killed by.

A towering monster that barely fit in the hallway towered above me, and it looked like it came out of a nightmare. It was grotesquely disproportionate, with one arm nearly as big as its body. The other was split into an innumerable amount of tentacles, each thick and laden with spikes and muscles.

It was vaguely humanoid from the upper body and beyond, all the way down to the revoltingly formed human-like head that held two eyes. One larger than the other, and both bloodshot and murderous. Its mouth wasn't even properly shaped, and lined with razor sharp teeth that penetrated its own jaw.

From the lower body down, it had absolutely no legs to speak of. Instead, its body was like a serpent's tail made of nothing but pink flesh. In the midsection of its body, I could see a slight red pulsing light flashing through its skin.

It growled at me with a feral, guttural sound that sent my skin into shivers. Its eyes stared down at me, and I sensed very limited intelligence from it.

But it wanted to kill me. That much, I could sense.

"**GRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" **

With a feral roar, it sent out a sound wave that sent me flying through the remains of the door behind me. I felt the metal pierce into my back and through half my body.

I skidded across the floor and slowed to a stop in the middle of the room. As I tried to get back up, I looked around me.

The entire training room, once a mechanism to test and kill me, was now bathed in the blood and bodies of soldiers. Dead people lay everywhere in sight, and I could smell the strong scent of flesh.

I got to my feet and pulled the gun to my chest, looking back at the lumbering brute. It slithered towards me extremely slowly, its massive arm dragging it forward with relative ease. The tentacles where its left arm would normally be began to creep along the floor, beginning to surround the whole room in the tendrils of flesh.

_I don't like where this is going._


	4. Encounter

Encounter

I felt a shot of pain run up my shoulder as I rolled to the side. My body struck the floor roughly before my legs crudely followed through, making me roll over.

And just then, the spot I had just been standing in has been smashed by the immense, disgusting creature.

I raised the gun in my hands and pulled the trigger, the way I had read about. The way I had seen the soldiers earlier do.

But all I felt was a tight, cold metal trigger against my finger. That was all I could feel. I felt the pressure from trying to pull that trigger.

However, the gun wasn't going off.

I squeezed the trigger again and again, but it wasn't firing.

_Why?!_

The creature turned to look at me slowly, and I could sense a cold feeling in my chest when its half-dead eyes stopped to stare at me.

I didn't know what this thing was. I had no idea.

But I didn't want to be anywhere near it.

_Maybe… _I looked down at the rifle in my hands and gripped the stock with both hands. _Maybe I can run if I can distract him…_

But as the menacing creature neared me inch by inch, I wanted to bolt. Make a break for it. Sprint in the opposite direction for whatever waited me at the end of the dark hallway.

Surely it was better than this.

The monster let out another spine chilling shriek and lunged at me, raising its bulky arm up into the air. I felt the wind brush violently past me, and I steeled myself.

As the arm came down, I rolled to the side again and evaded it. I felt the metal floor cave in where the beast's arm had made contact, and I scrambled to my feet and tightened my grip on the gun in my hand.

_Now!_

With all of the strength I could muster, I ran forward and swung the metal and plastic firearm in my fingers like a sword at the behemoth's face. It struck home, and the rifle shattered and bent in my hands.

But it did something. The breast let out a cry and crawled backwards, shaking its grotesque humanoid head as it did.

I realized that the small fragments of the gun I had used to hit it with had gotten into whatever eyes it had, probably rendering it unable to see.

I inched towards the exit ever so slowly, and the beast didn't take notice. I drew closer and closer to the entrance that led to the hallway, all the while making sure my feet didn't make a noise.

As I glanced down at the floor, an idea occurred to me. I picked up one of the dead bodies and, with all of my might, hurled it at the opposite end of the room.

It struck the far wall sloppily, making a soul-wrenching sound of wetness and broken bones as the body hit the steel and bounced off. It made another wet body as it hit the ground.

Just what I wanted.

The creature, as I was hoping, turned in the direction of the noise.

When I saw that, I immediately turned and began quietly running down the hall as fast as my feet could take me.

_Okay! _I could feel the corners of my mouth rising as I ran down the hall. _I'm safe! _

As I turned the corner of the dark, almost pitch black hallway, I tried not to slip on the floor that was still slick with blood.

And at the end of the turn, I found myself at the bottom of a stairway painted with blood. More bodies wearing camouflage splattered with blood and torn to show horrid wounds and injuries littered the steps.

…_why is this happening? _I thought to myself as I slowly ascended the steps, taking care not to step on the bodies as I went.

I reached the top of the steps, where another metallic sliding door like the ones I had seen previously was standing in front of me.

I walked forward delicately, and the door opened.

Peering around the corner, I was only confronted with more bodies. Only this time, there were people wearing those white coats added to the mix.

"…I need to get out of here." I decided, stepping into the new hallway that was still bathed and painted with red.

However, it wasn't like the other hallways I'd been in previously. Here, there wasn't as much blood. There were portions where the hallway was still eggshell white, though they were small in number and in size.

And there were less soldiers dead. They'd been substituted by people wearing lab coats. As I walked through hall after empty hall, the number of bodies just kept increasing.

I knew I was walking by dozens.

Suddenly, I felt my body freeze when I heard the sound of a voice somewhere. It was a faint, faraway voice, and I couldn't understand any of the words that it was saying.

I pressed my body against the wall, hiding myself as I very carefully glanced over the edge of the wall.

And there, pinned against the wall, was the old man who'd first called me by my name. He was being held there by someone I didn't know. Someone I'd never seen before.

Someone out of my nightmares.

His body looked normal. He had dark skin and a shaved head of hair, and he wore what looked like blue jeans and a green jacket.

But his arms were hideous. They were black and grotesquely muscular, and pulsed with red light. At the end of his arms were crude, stubby fingers that looked like blunted claws.

He was holding the scientist by the neck, appearing to choke the life out of him.

"Where is he?!" The black man snarled, and I could see his grip on the elderly man's neck tightening. Using his other arm, he smashed the section of the wall closest to the old man's head as a form of threat. "Where is he?!"

"…he's down the hallway…at the far end of the complex…" I could hear the elderly scientist croak. "…if he's still alive…"

The black man just grunted in acknowledgement and then smashed the man's skull into pieces. I forced a scream down my throat as I watched the fragments of flesh fly through the air, and the explosion of blood left a fresh coat of red paint on the walls.

_Why?! _I thought, my mind panicked. _How come?! He told you what you wanted to know, didn't he?!_

Suddenly, I heard the sound of a loud roar pierce the air and leave my senses stunned. I turned in the direction of it, and I felt my skin freeze.

A monster, the one I had evaded earlier, was barreling down the hallway at a relentless, savage pace that was leaving tear marks in the walls.

But, for some reason, a woman was running away ahead of it and towards me.

"Heller!" She yelled out, passing by me and stopping in front of the black man. She raised a small gun, a pistol by the looks of it, and fired a few rounds into the oncoming creature.

The man in green just walked forward, stepping in front of the woman and clenching his fists. Suddenly, his right arm began to morph and change, the flesh extending and enlarging until I was staring at an extremely long blade.

As the creature was about to smash the black man with its extremely large arm, the man just leaped up and landed a solid kick to its face and sent it sprawling. The abomination landed on its back, dazed and groaning in what sounded like pain.

The man just walked forward and cut downwards, ending the creature's life in a single blow. The head came flying off, and blood splattered all over the man's body until he was practically coated in it like the walls.

But as he approached me, I noticed that the blood was suddenly gone.

"…so it's you, huh?" He said to me in a raspy, quiet voice. He crouched down, his elbows on his knees, as he looked into my eyes intently. His arms had returned to normal ones.

Human arms.

I felt a shiver run down my body.

It was like his gaze was shooting daggers of ice into my skin and freezing my spine.

"That's him, Heller." I heard the woman say. "Come on, we have to go."

"Sorry, kid." The black man said to me, and he grabbed me by the waist and slung me over his shoulder. "You're coming with us for a bit."

I decided not to protest.

After all, I'd just witnessed him kill a monster like it was nothing.

He could do the same to me if he wanted.

He broke into a run, and I felt like my body was being pushed to its limits just being a passenger and not the driver. The wind streaking past my face was practically biting into my skin as if there were small creatures eating me alive, and my forehead knocked into the man's back painfully.

"Sorry." I could hear his gruff voice say to me. "Just hang on."

_Not like I can do anything else, can I?_


	5. Dana and Heller

**Heller and Dana**

…_ugh…ow…_

I felt a dull, hazy pain throbbing and surrounding the inner walls of my head as my heavy eyelids slowly opened to chase away the darkness that blocked my vision. They only reached halfway until they would stop rising to open. The pain felt powerful, but not totally overwhelming. Like someone was trying to split my head open but not quite managing to crack the egg in half totally. I took a deep breath of the air to discover a smell that hung in the air that was heavily layered with several different smells.

The faint scent of sweat was something I was familiar with due to my own experience with the workouts that I was forced to participate in back in the lab. It was a heavy smell, making up a large part of the aroma that I was detecting. It was pungent enough to be on the level of unpleasant, but it was not overwhelming.

After all, the most overwhelming part of the smell was the very same smell I had received doses of back where people were getting killed in copious amounts.

The smell of blood.

The air reeked of it. Stank.

Slowly, my sense of danger woke me up quickly enough. My headache slowly dissipated as I tried to rise, and I realized I was lying down on something. As my eyes adjusted to my location, I felt a strange vibe from what I was looking at.

There was a row of windows on the wall across from me, and they were flecked with blood, cracked, and some were even partially broken and shattered. The walls shared some of the qualities of the window, as the dark brown, fading and peeling paint was also speckled with red drops of dried blood and partially broken. Portions of the walls also had fallen out to reveal dark grey, as well as some of the wires; some of the cords were also severed, broken and frayed like they'd been cut with the blunt end of a hammer.

I looked down to see that I was sitting on a dark green couch that looked like it was barely holding up. Portions of the fabric were broken and revealing the filling of the cushions, and one end of the sofa was lower than the others. I felt like the unbalanced seat was going to give out soon, so I got to my feet.

I looked around the other parts of the room to see what I'd missed.

A ways to my right was a flat-screen television set that was looked slightly damaged but otherwise unharmed. The black power cord was plugged into a wall socket nearby, although the wall socket looked far more damaged and dangerous.

As I turned around, I took a step back, startled. There was a brown, damaged wooden door that was barely hanging on its half-broken hinges. In fact, felt miraculous that it was still there at all and not falling over. And at that doorway stood a single woman.

She was a slightly lean and slim woman with black hair dyed with red on several portions of her bangs. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she leaned on the doorway, a single foot on the wall like a biker. Her black leather jacket with camouflage-colored pants and black leather boots gave off an intimidating impression as well. She had a fierce-looking gaze in her silver-blue eyes that almost looked off on her otherwise calm expression.

Her eyes were clearly trained on me, but she didn't say a single word at all.

…_who is she? _

I had absolutely no idea who she was. What she wanted, why she was here, why I was here, if she had anything to do with it, or if she was uninvolved.

_Should I talk to her?_ I wondered, eyeing her carefully.

None of my instincts were telling me she was dangerous, she didn't seem like she was holding a weapon, and I was totally aware of the fact that I didn't know the first thing about where I was. Perhaps she knew something, and I had no other options other than to ask her.

Then again, she could've had a pistol in her sleeve of something. I could run the risk of death if she had a weapon I couldn't see.

"You okay?" She suddenly said, not changing her pose or her expression as she continued to look at me calmly. "I could tell he knocked you around quite a bit on the way here. You were out cold. Maybe I should have asked him to run a bit slower?"

"…um…" I didn't know what to say quite yet to her. "…who are you?"

"Me?" She stopped leaning on the doorway and walked closer to me, stopping when she was a little bit past arm's reach with her arms still closed. "Call me Dana."

"Um, okay." I really had no other response, so I just nodded to that.

She just smiled once and walked past me, sitting down onto the couch and leaning back onto the sofa. A snide giggle escaped her lips as she glanced at me. "You really look lost. I've never seen that kind of face on someone your age. It's priceless."

Unsure of how to react, I didn't say anything to her.

After a period of silence, she just took out a bottle of water and started glugging it down. And thanks to that, I decided to get a better sense of my bearings. I walked over to the window, looking around the room another time as I did. There was another doorway that led to another room nearby, but I decided not to walk in there just yet. Instead, I strode over to the windows and peered out.

Immediately, as I tried to look through the glass, a bright light struck my eyes and blinded me. By reflex, I backed away from the window and shielded my eyes. After a few seconds, of which made longer by the snickering of Dana nearby, I walked over to the window again and, this time, squinted.

I was greeted with a view of a city. Multicolored buildings of varying heights rose from the grey asphalt below. Smoke rose from several of the roofs, the dark black smoke curling ominously into the sky at the forefront of the light blue background. The sunlight reflected off of several metal objects on the roofs of the buildings lower than the one I was on, and they created refractions that hurt to look at.

It looked like a picture I'd seen once in a book I'd read before.

Although it was a bit different.

The buildings were partially damaged, with some having construction workers doing work on them and others with their injuries still present. I could make out holes and absences in the structure where steel beams and cement were supposed to be.

"…New York…I think." I muttered to myself, slowly glancing around. "The way it looks, I think that's where this is." I couldn't see any identifying landmarks, but I'd seen some pictures that looked similar to what I was seeing now. "What happened? Major reconstruction?"

"I can tell you have no idea what's been going on here." Dana said to me with a strangely irritated voice. "It kinda irritates me, how innocent you sound right now." She let out a tired sigh and sank further into the cushion, and the dangerous aura that she had just begun emitting died down quickly. "…I need a beer."

Suddenly, I felt the floor rumble beneath my feet. Vibrations shivered their way into my legs. I quickly grew uneasy and took a step back, leaning on the window frame with my arm. Another vibration followed the first, more violent and explosive than the last. I could swear that I felt the entire building quiver with energy.

"Wh-what's happening?" I asked out loud, slightly agitated and nervous as another impact rumbled throughout the floor.

Dana, the only other person present, didn't answer my question at all and just ignored me. She reached under the cushion that she sat on and pulled out the TV remote, switching on the monitor. Immediately, the channel switched to what appeared to be a news report.

With no answer, I dared to look out the window a second time. Nothing was changing outside, so I decided to get away from it and walk to the other room connected to this one. Glancing inside showed me a bedroom with a desk where a single black laptop rested, the monitor still active and plugged into the wall socket.

What alarmed me more, ever so slightly, were the amount of weapons in the room as well. I'd only seen them in books, but I knew enough to know what I was looking at. Several rifles and pistols were scattered around the room, and they clearly looked used.

Suddenly, the most powerful tremor yet rocked the building hard. I fell down to the floor in a panic as the world around me rumbled and shook. The sound of a roaring explosion boomed throughout the whole room. Dust and debris suddenly flew through the air as if a wall had been demolished to pieces.

"Wh-what the-?!" I exclaimed, panicked as I ran over to the doorway. It felt like the source of the violent tremors was the room I had just left.

I was right.

A wall had been removed, the wall where the door was. It was reduced to a heap of brown drywall that was scattered all over the floor. The light on the ceiling was dangling and shaking in a turmoil of tremors, blinking and flickering dangerously.

And in the middle of the room was the same black man I saw once before. His arms were thick and pulsing with sickly red light. I found that strange because the light appeared to come from within his arms instead of coming from some external source. It made no sense to me, and unsettled me greatly.

It was not a normal phenomenon.

The flesh that made up his arms wasn't normal, but instead was black and rough looking, as well as grotesquely muscular. They gave off an aura of pure strength and menace, and they looked easily capable of punching through a brick wall. His fingers were much larger and looked more like claws than fingers. They even had what appeared to be some talons at the ends of his hands, bristling with power.

I was more disturbed by the other thing in the room that he'd brought, though.

As though he was holding a large duffel bag, on his shoulder rested the body of a gigantic beast I'd never seen before. It was large enough to take up a quarter of the entire room and had pink skin coated with splashes and flecks of blood all over. Its head was disturbingly humanoid in shape and nature with a large mouth that was so wide that it would have reached its ears if it had any visible ones. Extremely large teeth that jutted out of its mouth glinted dangerously in the light.

Its claws were large and glinted in the light of the apartment room, white but bloody. The arms of the creature were robust and muscled like a well-built athlete's arms but thrice as big, and were longer than a meter at the very least. It appeared to be built like a four-legged creature, very remotely resembling a pinkish gorilla with all of its hairs shaves off.

A very large gash was carved in its side, and fresh blood leaked profusely from it like a gas truck that had been punctured with a jackhammer. Several large bones protruded from the skin around it, and the flesh inside looked ripped, slashed and otherwise like it had been severely shredded by a sharp object. The top of its head was caved in like a blunt object had broken its skull violently, and a few shards of bone stuck out of the head.

I took a step back in shock, and I accidentally tripped on my feet and fell on my rear. But I couldn't take my eyes off of the very big, very dead behemoth inside of the room as I got back up to my feet.

"Oh. He's up." The man that was carrying the creature said in a gruff, low voice that was fairly unsurprised. As casual as anyone would put on their shoes, the man put down the beast. It landed on the floor with a solid thud that shook the room a bit. He turned to Dana and walked over to her. It took me a while to comprehend the fact that his arms were changing back into what seemed like his normal arms as he walked to her. "Any updates? What happened while I was gone?"

"Not much." Dana replied dully, staring out the window like something else more interesting was happening in the sky. "He woke up and was confused like some kid with a new dad."

"Please don't make that analogy while I'm around." The man replied, his voice gaining a slight tone of irritation. He turned to me and gave me a look, like he wasn't sure he was looking at. "Hey there. Sorry for the rough ride on the way here. Seems like you got knocked out."

"Um…it's fine, I guess." I didn't really know what to say, but I knew I didn't want to make this guy upset. Something in my brain on the instinctual level was telling me not to make this guy my enemy in any way at all costs. I glanced again at the body of the large beast worriedly. "…that thing…what is it?"

"Don't mind that." The man replied, shrugging at it and just sighing. "Sorry that I brought it all the way up here, Dana. It was about to start wrecking the bottom floor, so I had to kill it."

"It's cool. Just don't do it took often, or you're going to end up putting too much holes in the place and we'll have to relocate." Dana got up from the couch and walked into the other room where the equipment I'd previously seen was. "You have a long talk with him. I think he needs it."

She exited the room in that manner, leaving me alone with the very intimidating man. I turned to face him, and he just shrugged and walked over to the couch. Sitting down roughly was enough to make the entire couch shake a bit. I could feel the shock of his sitting down from where I stood through my feet, which made me feel even more apprehensive about nearing him.

…_guess it can't hurt…_

I gave up thinking and took a seat near him, though I made sure to keep some distance between us. I was still within arm's reach thanks to the smallness of the couch, but I felt some comfort in the distance. But strangely, the two of us remained silent.

The silence hung in the air unsettlingly.

I had no idea what to think of it.

_Should I break it? Should I remain silent? _I thought, glancing silently at the man near me. _Maybe it'd be wiser to keep quiet until he talks, but…_

"…you ever been outside?" He asked quietly, not looking at me directly. His eyes were fixed on the floor in front of him. He leaned forward and leaned his elbows on his knees.

"…no." I said, shaking my head.

He said nothing to that, but I saw his expression change to a mix of pity, sadness and anger. He turned to look at me, and it looked like he had pain in his eyes. At the same time, though, I could feel some type of hostility mixed in with doubt. "…I'm sure you have a lot of questions, don't you?"

I didn't know what to say. I did have questions, but I didn't really know what to ask just yet. I was still too shocked with the entire situation I was in to think of things. I was just that confused.

Suddenly, before anything could have been said, I suddenly felt another powerful tremor rock the floor violently. It felt like the building had been pushed from the side by something with great force.

The man just clicked his tongue in irritation and sighed. "…let's start with me." He looked at me and made very clear eye contact. I was taken aback by his serious expression as he regarded me. "My name is James Heller. Maybe you may have heard my name mentioned by those scientists around you back where we rescued you?"

At that question, I tried my utter best to dig back into my memory. However, a lot of it was blurry and not very memorable. The things I remembered were details from the books I've read. Activities I vaguely remember doing when requested by those people around me.

No mention of a James Heller.

"Sorry." I said apologetically, shrugging. "I don't really know of you. Should I?"

At that, Heller just laughed. His chuckle contained faint traces of bitterness and relief. "Nah, it's better if you didn't."

"Maybe we should start with him instead." Dana's sudden interruption brought my head to face her, and I saw her standing directly behind us with her arms crossed. She leaned towards me, her eyebrows scrunched as she opened her mouth to ask a question. "Do you know who or what you are?"

"Dana, I got this…" Heller started, but he trailed off as he glanced at me.

It was clear he wanted the answer to that question as well.

But I didn't really know that answer.

Before I could try, Dana just glared at me and drew away. "I can tell you don't, so perhaps you'd like me to fill you in?" She walked out again, but came back into the room holding the laptop in her arm. Dana walked around the couch, stopped in front of me and then turned the screen to face me. "First of all, we'll have to start with this."

The display showed a picture of an extremely large building that looked so well-fortified that it could have easily. It was a round dome that easily surpassed the size of a small lake. The picture changed to what I presumed was the interior of the building, and I was greeted with the sight of numerous people in lab coats walking around alongside people wearing something entirely different; large body suits that offered no openings at all which has a single visor for seeing in the front of the head.

"This is the ground floor of the building where we found you." She said, pointing to the image. She reached forward and pressed a button on the keyboard, and the image changed again. This time, there was an image of a row of cages.

And each cage was occupied by…something. Each one was different. Some had two arms, some had one while others had five. Some had none at all. Some creatures looked very humanoid in nature despite their otherwise monstrous appearance, and others looked as monstrous as the creature I remember escaping from. Some were so big that their cage was twice the size of the other ones.

And all looked as grotesque as the one lying dead on the floor mere meters away.

"These are all creatures that were inside the same facility." Dana said, looking at me straight on. "…they're all humans. Or at least, they used to be."

That statement caught me off guard. I could definitely see a humanoid nature to most of them, but as the pictures changed, I could see beasts that were no longer anything close to what humans were supposed to look like.

"You were born the same way that they were."

I looked up at her as if she'd proposed to jump out the window and fly, but she didn't look anything apart from dead-serious. "Genetic engineering. That's how you were born."

"…um…" If I had one question, it was this. "…why did you save me from this place? Why did you…as you put it, rescue me?"

Dana didn't answer immediately, but pressed a button on the laptop. What showed up on the screen this time was a picture of a man I'd never seen before.

It was a man with pale skin and dark eyes. They made an impression me because they were very, very dark. As if I were looking into an abyss from which nothing existed save for nothingness. Over his head was a grey hood connected to a black jacket. "His name is Alex Mercer. Ring any bells?"

None.

But just as I was about to shake my head, something stopped me cold.

_Mercer…? _

The name suddenly pushed forth a new memory I didn't recall, and I nodded instead of shaking my head. "I don't know his face or anything, but I sort of remember the name Mercer being mentioned some time ago. I don't recall any details, but the name Mercer sounds…really familiar."

"It should." Heller was the one that replied. "That's Dana's last name. And technically, I guess it's yours."

"Mine?" That only bewildered me, and I turned to look at Dana. She just stared back at me, looking conflicted about something. "What does he mean?"

"…I was captured and brought to that same building about eleven months ago." She replied, though it sounded like she was recalling an unpleasant memory. "During the time I was there, they experimented on me a bit. They got my genetic information, DNA and all that stuff. They made you using my DNA along with some other people's DNA, and then raised you once you were a baby." She bit her lip as she spoke, like she was regretting something. "I was rescued from there by Heller later on, but you were already out of your growth chamber at the time. You grew at an abnormally fast rate, you know. You're not even a year old."

That knowledge in particular didn't rattle me as much as I would have expected it to. Instead of surprise, I accepted it quickly and shrugged. "I see. In other words, you're my biological mother." I looked up at her questioningly. "Who's the father?"

"DNA from more than one source is present in you." Heller suddenly said, and he sighed. "Some of the DNA used to make you was Alex Mercer's. Some was mine. And the rest, the majority of it, came from…well…a man we refer to as Pariah."

Another name that I seemed to remember being mentioned.

"Pariah is…?" I asked, trailing off since I expected an answer.

"…someone we'd rather not meet." Heller's voice grew more restrained and quiet, and he crossed his arms. "If there's anyone we'd rather not meet, it's him. He's way too strong for someone like me to beat."

"Yeah, um…about that." I continued. "What's with your arms and these creatures? You guys mentioned some sort of genetic modification. Are these the result of that?"

"It's all the result of the Blacklight Virus." Dana said, her expression turning grim. "It's a powerful virus that forces the body to undergo changes that it shouldn't by activating dormant parts of your genetics that should stay dormant on a cellular level. People normally die when exposed to this virus and turn into mindless monsters." She pointed at Heller and the picture of Alex Mercer. "These two are exceptions to that. So is Pariah…and so are you."

I tilted my head in reply. "In other words, I'm also carrying the virus?"

"You are, and in a different way from me." Heller pointed at me when he said that. "Unlike Alex Mercer and I, who were infected the virus while we were still alive, you were born with the virus in your body."

"…is that detail important?" I asked.

Dana nodded in response, looking grave. "It means that the virus is perfectly normal to you. It's a bit difficult to explain, but…" She scratched her head as she said this, looking confused with her own thoughts. "The bare minimum I can tell you is that you're different. You're not even technically human."

That thought sank in for a bit, but it didn't strike me that hard. It didn't really matter to me that much to begin with, so hearing such a thing didn't really do anything to me.

"…let's move on, then." I decided. "What about the people around me? Who were they?"

"Blackwatch and Gentek." Dana said in reply, pressing the next button on her laptop to make another picture appear. This time, there were pictures of soldiers wearing strange uniforms I'd never seen before along with people wearing those full-body suits I'd seen before. "Gentek is an organization that works on creating biological weaponry. Blackwatch, on the other hand, is a division of the military that specializes and handles biohazards and other kinds of similar threats, such as viral outbreaks."

I nodded to that. "If they're supposed to contain biological threats, why are they involved with the making one?"

To that question, Heller spat to the side in disgust and smashed one fist into the other. I didn't expect the resulting shockwave to push me backwards a bit. I could feel it shake the room a bit, and the body of the dead creature moved a bit. "They're helping create one so that they have a deterrent. Bullshit, if you ask me, no matter how logical it might sound."

"Anyway, we'll discuss Blackwatch and Gentek some other time." Dana said, shrugging and closing her laptop. "We saved you for one reason alone, and that's because we don't want anyone else ending up like my brother, Alex. If they train you to follow them, you could destroy the world."

"That's the part I don't understand, Dana." Heller spoke up, his eyebrows meeting above his eyes. "I don't see any reason for him to be stronger than me. I mean, he passed out from a speed I run at." He gestured to me with his hand in disbelief. "No matter how the virus works in his body, there's no way he's stronger than me. I already consumed Alex."

"True." Dana said, shrugging. "But we did it to eliminate all the odds. After all, we don't know just what the virus is capable of. Even Blackwatch and Gentek aren't stupid enough to just create something capable of destroying the world."

"If we're eliminating odds, shouldn't we just take him out?" Heller proposed almost defiantly, and his arms instantly transformed into large, long and wicked claws that shone intimidatingly in the light. I immediately backed away from them, and Heller made no move to strike me with them.

"…do you really think that's the best solution?" Dana asked, giving Heller a look of skepticism. "…do you, Heller?" She held a hand out to gesture to me. "He's done nothing wrong. And you're gonna kill him?"

"If he does, I won't hesitate. I don't do charity, Dana." Heller said, rising to his feet and walking over to the dead body of the creature he'd brought in earlier. He punched it with his fist, and suddenly tendrils of bioluminescent flesh reached out from his body and embedded themselves in the flesh of the dead creature. Just like that, the monster's flesh began to warp, deform and channel itself into Heller's arm as if his hand were a straw and he was drinking the monster. After it was completely gone, he shot me a look. He then turned back around and jumped.

Through the ceiling.

"I keep telling him to stop doing stuff like that." Dana muttered to herself exasperatedly, dodging She turned to me. "Don't mind him. He's probably on the top floor brooding again."

"Um…what should I do now?" I asked her, still lost.

"Well…for now, I guess you should take a look around town." Dana said after giving it a moment of thought. "It'd be good for you to get some exposure to the world after being locked away the way you were." She rushed out of the room, into the other one, then came back with a leather jacket and a pair of pistols belted around her waist. "First, I'm going to buy you some clothes so blend in. You can't wear that around town."

I looked down at my attire, which consisted of nothing but undergarments and a single, blood-splattered white hospital gown.

"…yeah, that sounds like an idea. Thanks." I said in gratitude.

Dana just shrugged and left without another word, closing the door and leaving me alone in the apartment room. Left with no one else, I looked up through the gaping hole left by Heller in the ceiling of the room.

The sunlight shone quite dully through the chasm of wood and wallpaper that had been made through the ceiling, as I discovered I was staring through a series of gaps that had punched all the way through to the top floor of the apartment complex. Pieces of broken wood dangled off of their perches like cracked branches on a rotting tree, and dust and paint was slowly descending through the air like a haze of smoke.

…_what should I do now? _

Waiting certainly seemed like a good option, but I was wondering if there was something more productive to do with my time. Besides, I've never done nothing before, and the prospect of such an idea did not appeal to me in the slightest.

But there was nothing else to do, really.

Apart from talking to James Heller.

That idea didn't really appeal to me that much earlier. He could probably just as easily smash my entire body in half and then some if I got on his bad side.

Yet I didn't know any other way to learn about what's been happening in the outside world. Apart from walking outside, which I couldn't do yet.

_If only I had my books…_ I thought to myself with a sigh as I walked outside the apartment room and made for the staircase. _Now…top floor, top floor…_


End file.
